TUBUAI. 
383 
brought on board, and this was readily purchased. 
Many of the natives, in addition to the common 
bandage encircling their bodies, and a light 
cloth over their shoulders, wore large folds of 
white or yellow cloth bound round their heads, in 
some degree resembling a turban, which gave 
them a remarkably Asiatic appearance. They 
also wore necklaces of the nuts of the pandanus ; 
the scent of which, though strong, is grateful to 
most of the islanders of the Pacific. 
They were at this time addicted to unjust and 
barbarous war, and sometimes failed to manifest 
that hospitality, and afford that protection, to the 
voyagers from other countries, which is generally 
shewn by the inhabitants of other islands. On 
the day after our arrival, two or three natives of 
the Paumotu or Palliser’s Islands, which lie to the 
eastward of the Society Islands, came on board 
our vessel, and asked the captain for a passage to 
Tahiti. He inquired their business there ? They 
said, that some weeks before, they left Tahiti, 
whither they had been on a visit, to return to their 
native islands, but that contrary winds drifted 
their canoe out of its course, and they reached the 
island of Tubuai; that shortly after their arrival, 
the natives of the island attacked them, plundered 
them of their property, and broke their canoe ; 
that they wished to go to Tahiti, and acquaint 
Pomare with their misfortune, procure another 
canoe, and prosecute their original voyage. Two 
Europeans, who were on the island at the time’, 
reported that they were very peaceable in their be¬ 
haviour ; that the natives of Tubuai had attacked 
the strangers because they had tried to persuade 
them to cast away their idols, and had told them 
there was but one true God, viz. Jehovah. Our 
